Potential for green infrastructure to adapt to and mitigate climate change

North West England

PROJECT TEAM & PARTNERS

Community Forests North West (The Mersey Forest and Red Rose Forest) are the lead organisation. University of Manchester and the Environment Agency are on the working group. The advisory panel includes UK Climate Impacts Programme, Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, Natural England, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Forest Research, Natural Economy North West, Universities of Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Southampton and Bangor. There is also a wider group of stakeholders.

CONTRACT VALUE
£120,000

FUNDING
North West Development Agency through the North West Climate Change Action Plan

TIMESCALE
2 years until March 2010

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

Green infrastructure (GI) helps to mitigate and adapt for climate change.

Mitigation roles are limited but important and include: carbon storage and sequestration; fossil fuel and material substitution; food production; reducing the need to travel by car.

Adaptation roles of GI are perhaps more significant and include: moderating urban temperature extremes to make towns and cities more attractive and comfortable places to live, work, visit and invest; reducing flood risk and surface water management; allowing species to move through a more permeable landscape; providing a visitor resource for a more outdoors lifestyle, and diverting visitor pressure from more sensitive landscapes.

The project has a number of key activities including:

1. Climate change, risks, opportunities and priorities - The latest climate change projections will be used to identify and prioritise climate change risks which GI can help to reduce, and opportunities which GI can help to realise.
2. Research, policy and delivery review - The review will identify research findings relevant to the role of GI, policies supportive of this role, and projects delivering it on the ground.
3. GI climate change assets - Areas where the different roles of GI are most important across the North West will be identified.
4. Detailed study of two strategically important areas - Areas will be selected for a more detailed investigation of the role of GI in mitigating and adapting to climate change.
5. North West GI Climate Change Action Plan - The work will lead towards the development of a plan, with actions which can be delivered by partners and stakeholders across the region to ensure that GI is providing its climate change benefit.

Key output/outcomes include:

• Engagement of stakeholders in the region
• Reports for each key activity
• Review database (to be hosted on www.greeninfrastructurenw.co.uk)
• Embedding of climate change functionality into sub-regional GI plans and strategies
• North West GI Climate Change Action Plan

PROJECT TARGETS

• Stakeholders formally engaged in project (100) - exceeded, with 662 stakeholders engaged to date, through presentation at the North West Climate Change conference, and presentations and discussions at the North West Green Infrastructure Forum and Think Tank, as well as other key presentations and discussions.
• Feasibility studies, research or monitoring activities (4) - 1 achieved to date, looking at 'Critical Climate Change Functions of Green Infrastructure for Sustainable Economic Development in the North West' (available at http://www.greeninfrastructurenw.co.uk/resources/Critical_CC_Fns_of_GI_for_Sus_Ec_Dev_in_the_NW.pdf)
• Regional or sub-regional policies, strategies or action plans developed (1) - none to date
• Communication and/or marketing initiatives (1) - none to date

CHALLENGES FACED

1. Data availability - working with readily available data, using proxies for the different climate change functions, working with key partners who can share datasets, indicative mapping of where GI functions are most important without going into the detail of whether or not GI is there.

2. Stakeholders - using existing networks such as the Green Infrastructure Forum and Think Tank in NW England.

3. Fast changing policy - using a database to hold the review so that it can be easily updated.

CONTACT DETAILS

Susannah Gill
Tel: 01924 859610)
E-mail: susannahgill@merseyforest.org.uk

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